View full sizeSouthwest Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne, right, hosted southeast Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise on a red snapper fishing trip out of Orange Beach a week ago to highlight the abundance of the popular gamefish off his state's coast and the ease with which they can be caught. (Jeff Dute/jdute@al.com)

Reaction has been mixed to the U.S. House Natural Resource Committee's Thursday vote to send the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act to the House floor for full debate.

The act and included changes reauthorizes the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which sets standards and regulations for the fair and equitable management of the marine species commercially and recreationally caught in federal water.

Southwest Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne applauded the committee's passage of the act, which includes several of his suggested changes and amendments.

The act repeals a section of Magnuson-Stevens mandating quotas on red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Byrne had earlier introduced a bill, the Supporting New Avenues to Protect Our Fishermen's Resources Act or SNAPR Act, intending to repeal quota mandates on red snapper "to allow for greater flexibility in setting federal fishing seasons."

The issue of federal management of a number popular recreationally caught Gulf fish has festered for years. It boiled over this year when a federal judge agreed with commercial fishermen who claimed in a lawsuit that the National Marine Fisheries Service was illegally allowing recreational red snapper fishermen to exceed their share of the Gulfwide red snapper quota without implementing stricter accountability measures.

That decision forced NMFS to plug new Marine Recreational Information Program data into models used to determine season length. The results reduced the 2014 federal red snapper season from 40 days to 11 days.

State non-compliance with federal seasons further reduced the season to 9 days. It opens Sunday at 12:01 a.m.

During debate, Byrne introduced an amendment accepted by the full committee that would also remove the stock assessment and data collection responsibilities for reef fish currently held by the National Marine Fisheries Service and transfer this authority to the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, a state-run organization.

"Today's committee vote is an important step forward in restoring sanity to the regulatory process in the Gulf of Mexico," Byrne said in a news release. "This reauthorization makes needed reforms to federal fisheries policy that will allow greater flexibility in decision-making for the Gulf Council and more stability for our fishermen. Most importantly, it returns authority back to the states, who are more capable of managing this issue than the federal government."

The news release states that Byrne concurred with experts like Dr. Bob Shipp of the University of South Alabama "who argue that the federal government's data-collection practices are flawed and do not accurately reflect the amount of red snapper stocks in the Gulf of Mexico.

Reached Thursday afternoon via email, Shipp, a long-time member and former chairman of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, endorsed the House committee's action, calling the Byrne amendment "a giant step forward."

"Finally we may be returning to sane management of reef fish," Shipp wrote. "Where previously we had one of the healthiest stocks on the planet, but were needlessly killing thousands of pounds of red snapper during the 300-plus day closures, and the recreational fishery was nearly moribund, now we can be moving toward an extended, stable, and predictable fishery.

View full sizeSoutheast Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise gets two tags that allow him to legally possess the red snapper he caught during a trip last week with "Reel Surprise" captain Randy Boggs, who is participating in a two-year, headboat pilot program. The program allocates a portion of the recreational red snapper quota to 17 headboat captains Gulfwide and allows them to catch their individual quota whenever they want. (Jeff Dute/jdute@al.com)

"With this amendment, both common sense and good science are coming together. The Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission has a strong history of successful management, and by transferring management of reef fish to the Commission, this fishery is far more likely to share in that success."

Alabama Marine Resources Director Chris Blankenship said the committee's vote could be the first step to fix the "broken" federal system.

"The current red snapper management system is not working. I appreciate the efforts of Congressman Byrne to effect real change in the way that reef fish stock assessments are conducted and his efforts to give more flexibility to the fisheries managers," Blankenship said. "The State of Alabama is in favor or assuming the total management of the red snapper fishery off our coast. Congressman Byrne's amendment is the first step in reaching this goal.

"We will continue to work closely with our congressional delegation as this important piece of legislation moves through Congress."

Blankenship said he was encouraged to hear support for the Byrne amendment from representatives from Louisiana, Florida, Washington and Virginia during committee testimony.

"Congressman Byrne has garnered broad support for his common-sense changes to the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization legislation," Blankenship said.

On the other side of the spectrum, the act received mixed reviews from recreational fishing and boating community leaders of the American Sportfishing Association, Coastal Conservation Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association, The Billfish Foundation, The Center for Coastal Conservation, the International Gamefish Association, Get Hooked on Fishing and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation.

"While we appreciate Chairman Doc Hasting's interest and efforts in Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization, we would like to have seen more done in this bill to address the needs of the recreational fishing community," Mike Nussman, president and CEO of the American Sportfishing Association, said in a joint news release. "This bill includes several provisions that we support, such as easing the strict implementation of annual catch limits and improving stock assessments for data poor fisheries, but unfortunately our top priorities are not meaningfully addressed."

During 2013, members of the Commission on Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Management met to deliberate and debate strategies to improve saltwater recreational fisheries management, culminating in the commission's report, "A Vision for Managing America's Saltwater Recreational Fisheries,"which identifies six key policies that would achieve the commission's vision. Those recommendations primarily focus on Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization.

The recommendations offered by the Commission on Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Management, commonly known as the Morris-Deal Commission, include:

"In addition to overlooking the priorities of the Morris-Deal Commission, we are also disappointed that the federal management failure with red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico is not resolved in H.R. 4742," said Patrick Murray, president of the Coastal Conservation Association. "A comprehensive overhaul of red snapper management is the only way to get us out of this mess. It's vital that Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization addresses this management train-wreck by transferring Gulf red snapper management over to the states, which are much better equipped to successfully manage this important fishery."

If it becomes law, the act would also extend southward Alabama's territorial water from its current 3-mile boundary to 9 miles, matching state water boundaries now enjoyed by only Texas and Florida.

According to Byrne's news release, increasing state water would effectively give the state more control over its resources and the option for a more reasonable fishing season.

Blankenship agreed, saying that extending the state-water boundary would put Alabama on equal footing with Texas and Florida.

"I am glad to know that the portion of the bill that would extend Alabama's boundary for fisheries management to nine miles is moving forward," Blankenship said.

Blankenship has previously indicated that MRD personnel are already working to get permits that would allow more artificial reefs to be placed inside the extended boundary when it becomes law.

Territorial-water boundaries would also be extended to 9 miles off Louisiana and Mississippi.